The Quiet Innovation of Infrastructure in the Lab with CBRE’s Mark Trueman

Seeing Beyond the Dashboard

When you picture a laboratory, chances are your mind conjures a clean, clinical environment — white coats, centrifuges, the hum of fluorescent lights. But beneath that surface hum lies a different kind of engine. It’s invisible, often overlooked, and yet essential to the success of every experiment: the infrastructure of operational support. The pipes and platforms that quietly keep the science moving.

Mark Trueman has made a career out of helping others do their best work — not by stepping into the spotlight, but by refining everything behind it. As Global Technical Director for CBRE’s Full Spectrum Lab Services, Mark works at the nexus of real estate, technology, and science. His job is deceptively simple: keep labs running. But the reality is far more complex. Lab equipment today is more expensive, more fragile, and more interdependent than ever. A broken centrifuge no longer just means a pause in workflow — it might derail a critical study, or compromise months of irreplaceable data. What once could be managed with a clipboard and a yearly checkup now demands predictive analytics, real-time monitoring, and nuanced human collaboration.

In this conversation, Mark walks us through the transformation of lab management from a reactive, hands-on discipline to a proactive, data-visualized environment. He shares how labs have evolved into high-stakes shared spaces, where understanding the difference between “in use” and “almost in use” can save thousands in misallocated resources. And he introduces a powerful metaphor: imagine your lab like an airport — every machine, every process, flagged in real time for risk, readiness, and repair. With modern visualization tools, scientists can now “see” their lab the way pilots see the runway: with full confidence that the systems behind them are working exactly as they should.

This is a conversation about trust. It’s about sitting down with scientists and saying: we’re not here to take your tools — we’re here to make sure they work when you need them. Mark shares stories about the art of change management exemplified by doing one radical thing: listening. Because at the end of the day, innovation isn’t just about the equipment. It’s about people. And the best technology is the kind that frees people up to do what they do best.

Links & Notes

• Connect with Mark on LinkedIn
• 🔍 Want to see your lab like never before? Discover how Hopara’s digital visualization tools turn complex facility data into real-time clarity — so your science never skips a beat. Learn more ➝